


so that we may rise again

by perennials



Series: a matter of infinite hope [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Future Fic, KuroTsukki Fluff Week 2018, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 13:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17081144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: It’s like that when your high school crush shows up out of the blue for the first time in four years.





	so that we may rise again

**Author's Note:**

> day (4) playlist
> 
> i guess there is a tag now huh

i.

The day Kei finds Kuroo Tetsurou again, it‘s raining.

 

All the schoolchildren are hidden beneath crayon-colored raincoats, the office workers in their ironed suits staring out of foggy windows. There’s a dampness in the air that leaves him feeling like he’s swimming against the tide wherever he goes. There’s an orange sun in the sky.

 

Inside a warmly-lit Tully’s in the heart of Ryogoku, Tokyo, Kei slides into an empty booth and drops his headphones on the table.

 

It’s Thursday. Thursdays mean killer morning classes, lab sessions in the afternoon, unnecessary conversations with regretfully necessary people. Thursdays mean being more exasperated with the world than he already is by default, because he never has time to make his morning coffee and ends up running on fumes before he  _ should  _ be running on fumes. Thursdays mean  _ everything fucking sucks  _ sometimes, so Kei walks into a Tully’s after class and gets a booth. He takes out his headphones. He orders a slice of cake for himself.

 

Outside the window, the ash-colored city rises and falls with every lashing of rain, horror-movie picturesque despite its underwhelming color coordination. It’s as if the heavens couldn’t decide what they wanted to be today, and just gave up on trying. Now everything’s all jumbled up.

 

And what do you know, because Kei is all jumbled up, too. He returns to the booth with his cake in hand, his eyes trained on his feet and his heart swimming lazy laps around the halo of his head. Sits down on one end of the cushioned seat. Picks up his fork.

 

And he’s just about to cut into his precious reward for the day, his consolation prize for surviving yet another hellish round of Life In College Living In The Dorms With Maybe Like Two Friends (!). He’s just about to stop trying for half a minute, because he deserves this shit, really, he does, he’s been zombie-walking through each hour of the day and still somehow managed to get everything done. He’s just about to let go.

 

But today is the day he finds Kuroo Tetsurou again, which means it’s raining, which means it’s cold outside. The sun looks strange and blurry against the washed-out gray of the sky. The world holds its breath. The truth is, he hasn’t been able to let go of anything.

 

And then: a voice, low and soft and hesitant. Fingers drumming lightly against the side of the table. The sound of years and years of radio silence shattering all over the brown tiled floor.

 

“You’re still wearing those same headphones, huh?”

 

Kei looks up. Kuroo Tetsurou smiles at him like glass.

  
  


ii.

The day Kei finds Kuroo again, he’s inside a Tully’s in the middle of Ryogoku where nothing ever happens, and their seasonal special is the strawberry shortcake, and there’s a love song playing on the radio. Kuroo’s wearing a burgundy turtleneck, black skinny jeans, a hoop through his right ear. Kuroo’s wearing twenty-two like he’s waited to be here all his life.

 

Kei remembers the name of the song that’s playing because it’s a Christmas song, the English lyrics clear enough to make out through the coffee shop‘s endless chatter. He remembers the name of the song because Kuroo laughs awkwardly in the middle of a lapse in conversation and says  _ I never liked this song, it’s too sad for Christmas, what the hell kinda guy writes a song about getting dumped by his ex? _

 

_ If it didn’t work out, then it didn’t work out. He might as well stop moping over it and move on. _

 

It’s their first conversation in four years—

 

—And it’s happening in a  _ coffee shop.  _ Kei almost wants to laugh, but he’s so tense he can’t remember how to. He wants to say something that actually matters; something, anything, a single thought out of the stream of consciousness narrative that’s been playing out since Kuroo graduated and all the birds fell out of the sky.  _ Where have you been, was Waseda good for you, did you miss me. _

 

_ What was it like living by yourself, is your father still getting along fine, did you miss me. _

 

_ I missed you.  _ A waitress glides past their booth and places Kuroo’s order on the table with a dainty clink. The words tiptoe up Kei’s throat and fall right back into his stomach.  _ I missed you. _

 

Kuroo lifts the cup to his lips, blows on it. He lowers his gaze as he does so, his long lashes fluttering with the movement, and for half a second Kei is frozen, deer in the headlights with the hard plastic limbs. Kei’s heart makes a revolution around the solar system.

 

This isn’t new, Kuroo’s pretty-boy face and his pretty-boy smile, but it’s different. He’s older now, sharper, the cut of his jaw rougher than it used to be in high school. There’s a thin scar above his left eye. There’s a keychain on his backpack beside the Nekoma one, faded and scratched up with time.

 

This isn’t new, but it’s catastrophic all the same. Kei walked in seeking shelter from the rain, seeking shelter for his heart, and now it’s like he never tried to move on at all. He’s barely breathing, barely moving, his chest tighter than a rubber band wound four times around his wrist. He’s barely present at all.

 

And Kuroo— well, Kuroo is  _ here.  _ With his messy hair and sunflower-gold eyes, and that irritating half-smirk that’s both infuriatingly confident and arrestingly sweet at the same time, Kuroo is  _ here,  _ in a crowded Tully’s in Ryogoku on a Thursday afternoon when everything sucks, telling Kei about the woes of being a Philosophy major. College has been good to him. Life has been good to him.

 

Kei almost wants to laugh when Kuroo tells him that, his crescent-eyes sparkling with what looks like genuine happiness. But he still can’t remember how to, and he can’t bring himself to try, so he doesn’t.

 

There’s so much Kei wants to say to him. He cuts his cake into quarters.

  
  


iii.

Kuroo keeps running his hand through his hair, and the rain keeps falling, and Kei keeps feeling like he’s dying.

 

Kuroo keeps doing things that remind him of being fifteen again, foolish and flighty and in love with the idea of someone fifty times brighter than he thinks he’ll ever be.

 

Kei’s dying.

  
  


iv.

By the time Kuroo glances down at his watch and winces and says, “Shit, I gotta go soon,” the moody Christmas love song has already played twice. It sticks out like a sore thumb amidst all the other cheery tunes that drift through the coffee shop, so Kei notices.

 

Kei blinks at him. “Oh.”

 

In the span of time it takes for his brain to process the fact that Kuroo is leaving, twenty-three minutes after they’ve finally met for the first time in four years, Kuroo returns his empty cup, slings his bag over his shoulder, and gets to his feet. He stands by the side of the booth quietly, fidgeting with the loose threads of his sweater.

 

“I guess I’ll see you around, or something?” He laughs again, awkwardly, like he’s got glass in his lungs and he’s forcing all this congested air past it.

 

He looks like he’s going to leave. He looks more than ready to leave. Kei still hasn’t said a single thing he wanted to say. Four years’ worth of heartache and hauntings, and all he’s managed to do is maintain a stuttering conversation about college affairs and the horrors of having a roommate who thinks it’s a good idea to microwave aluminium foil. He’s a fucking  _ joke. _

 

Frantic, he clears his throat. “Wait—”

 

Kuroo turns back to look at him, tilting his head to the side in question. And fuck it, it’s a cute gesture. He looks cute. Kei wants to trace every inch of his face with his hands, Kei wants to fall right into him.

 

It’s like that when your high school crush of four years shows up out of the blue. It’s just like that.

 

He presses on.

 

“I don’t think the singer was moping in that song from earlier. Or, uh, he might have been just a  _ little,  _ but he sounded like he was moving on, too. He sounded like he was willing to give someone else another chance.

 

“I guess what I mean is, everyone deserves another chance. Time passes, whether we like it or not. Shit changes.” Kei thinks about high school gymnasiums and textbooks full of averted gazes, contextual clues sidelined by daydreams and long distances. He swallows hard.

 

He’s twenty now. He’s tired of looking for signs in the clouds.

 

“I missed you, Kuroo.”

 

Without himself realizing it, Kei’s stood up, too, and without realizing it, the distance between them has shrunk from the breadth of a table to a scant few inches. Kei can feel his breath on his cheeks.

 

Slowly, softly, Kuroo’s exterior cracks, lighting up like a Christmas lights display. His expression falls loose, and he must have forgotten how to laugh properly too after all, because he looks so much better than he did before. He looks eighteen again. The corners of his eyes crinkle with firework-laughter.

 

“Shit. Oh, god,  _ uh.” _ Kuroo covers his face with the back of his hand to try and lessen the damage, but his cheeks are already turning red, his ears pinking at the tips. Up close, his eyes are even prettier. Kei’s heart gets launched into another trip around the solar system.

 

“This is not to say that I’m still in love with you after all these years or anything,” Kuroo says weakly, dizzily, the fabric of his smile wavering just enough to be real. “But.”

 

He bites his lip, burning brighter than the strange orange sun outside, burning brighter than Sirius. “But.

 

“I think I’m still in love with you after all, Tsukishima Kei.”

 

There’s still so much to fix, so many glass shards hidden underneath chair legs and tablecloths. There’s still the matter of the day all the birds fell out of the sky, and left a sea of hurt silence in their wake.

 

But for now, Kei reaches shakily for Kuroo’s hand and tugs it away from his face, and Kuroo lets him. They reach out for each other, across the bruised chasm of four years of quiet _.  _ Kuroo looks like late night everything’s and kites in peacock blue skies and Sunday morning, hot water on the stove and eggs frying in the kitchen. Kuroo looks like every daydream Kei ever let go of.

 

In the end, nothing was broken; they were just waiting to be found again.

  
  


v.

Years later, there will be a two-room apartment with a shared bedroom, a well furnished study that belongs primarily to the cat and only secondarily to its human owners. There will be a brown twin-seater in the living room covered in scratches and old stains, and overlapping water rings on the wooden surface of the dining table. There will be evenings as slow as waltzes.

 

Kei will be curled up on the sofa, and Tetsurou will be drying the last of the dishes at the sink. When he’s done, he will lean against the back of the sofa and look at Kei’s phone over his shoulder, his fingers curled gently in the tangled mess of his drying hair.

 

_ That’s a funny playlist,  _ Tetsurou will say, low and soft and affectionate.  _ There’s only one song in it. _

 

Kei will smile at him cryptically, turning around to kiss the corner of his mouth.

 

_ It’s a song that brings back a lot of memories,  _ he will reply, and then Tetsurou will chuckle and call him weird,  _ you might as well just loop the song by itself then, Kei. _

 

But Tetsurou will kiss him again anyway, and it will be soft like a spring shower, all the children in their crayon-colored raincoats dashing through the wet light, all the birds singing old love songs under the mantle of the lavender-blue sky. It will be bright like Christmas morning.

 

It will be tender, like glass, but kinder.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikiforcvs)
> 
> i finally stopped ending them with the word love somewhere in the last sentence lol. hi!!!!!!!!  
> this didn't really fit the memo did it. is it fluffy (intense mirror scrutinizing) not really oops mother i am sorry. but hey i made day 4 somehow even though i almost died on the way back from malaysia. these pieces are progressively getting fewer and fewer revisions. i am sorry for putting out extremely Dubious work. nonetheless!  
> thank you so much for reading all my funny stuff, it means a lot to me. as always, all kudos, comments, and bookmarks are appreciated like This Much (pointing at the most convenient symbol in my writing, the fuckin moon). that much
> 
> have a good one


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